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The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site and Ebenezer
Baptist Church will commemorate the annual observance of King
Remembrance Week which honors the life and legacy of the Reverend Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. April 4-8, 2016. To commence the Park’s week
long series of public activities, a special Wreath-Laying Ceremony will
take place at Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, Heritage Sanctuary in
Atlanta, Georgia on Monday April 4, 2016 at 5:30pm. This year marks the
48th anniversary of the death of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine
Motel in Memphis, Tennessee and was brought home to be buried in the
Sweet Auburn community. On April 9, 1968, his funeral took place at
Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church and Morehouse College. To reflect upon
that solemn occasion in history, the National Park Service along with
members of Ebenezer Baptist Church will place a replica of the 1968
wreath on the historic location of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Heritage
Sanctuary as it appeared on April 9, 1968. There will be a brief program
with remarks by National Park Service officials and other dignitaries
before laying the wreath upon the church’s façade.

The annual April 4th Commemoration at the National Civil Rights Museum is a … life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the anniversary of his death at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968. … music selections, a ceremonial wreath laying and a

The King Assassination Conspiracy: Betrayed by Judas

On March 28 1968 King was leading a march
in downtown Memphis when a masonic planned riot broke out and two Negro Masonic
assassins chased King and Abernathy with the intent to assassinate both King
and Abernathy on March 28.

King and Abernathy were able to find
refuge at a white business until the white print shop owner was able to safely escort
King and Abernathy out of town.

On April 3, 1968, Loree Bailey, the co-owner of
the Lorain Motel received a call from a member of Kings inner circle in Atlanta
requesting that a specific room on the second floor be reserve for King.
(King had always stayed in a secure room on the 1st floor.) On April 4,
Loree Bailey overheard a member of Kings entourage asking him to come out of
his room and speak to a small group that had assemble in the parking lot.
Loree Bailey knew that King was in bed suffering from a severe headache but
this member of Kings inner circle insisted that King come out and talk to the
people. King reluctantly came out of his room to speak to the small crowd when
he was shoot. Loree knew the identity of the Judas who had Dr. King set-up
to be assassinated. There
were Negro masonic assassins in Memphis the day of
the assassination one from Forrest City Arkansas. Were these the same assassins who attempted to kill King a week earlier? According to testimony from eye witnesses from the King
family vs. US government trial, the gun smoke came from the bushes across from
the motel and not from the bathroom window at the boarding house where Ray had stayed.

Dr. ML King and Loree Bailey were killed by Negro Masonic Assassins doing the dirty work of their white masonic slave masters.

Was the Judas who betrayed King following orders from his Masonic White Master?

Loree
Bailey was killed, hung in the stairwell of her motel only hours after
the King assassination. The official cover-up statement said that Loree
Bailey had a stroke on April 4th and died a few days later.

Who
was the Judas who set-up King? Was King assassination a Masonic hit?
Was a beer distributorship part of the payoff?Steve Cokley said it best
in his video.

The 47th
anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination should
inspire us all to reimagine this political revolutionary’s final act as a
statesman and civil rights leader.

In the afterglow of the March on Washington and the
Selma-to-Montgomery march, King became a pillar of fire, rejecting the
course of political moderation and social reform that had made him
palatable to white leaders and a hero to African Americans.

King’s final years
found him linking the struggle for racial justice to a wider crusade to
end war and poverty. Tellingly, his comprehensive approach, which
focused on changing America’s foreign and domestic policies as well as
hearts and minds, found him under attack by critics who claimed that he
was in over his head on the subject of Vietnam and foolish to break with
former ally President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The radical King formed an anti-war political alliance with black
power leader Stokely Carmichael. On April 15, 1967, in New York City, King and Carmichael
headlined the largest anti-war rally in American history to that date,
placing two of the era’s leading black political activists at the
forefront of a still-unpopular anti-war movement.

King had also publicly repudiated the war in Vietnam exactly one year
to the day before his death in a speech at Riverside Church in New York
City. His speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence,” announced
his formal break with both the Johnson Administration (he would never
visit the White House again) and political moderation.

Journalists and newspapers immediately attacked King for going beyond
his civil rights portfolio into the world of foreign policy and
international politics. Many publicly denounced him for having
irrevocably damaged the black freedom struggle by linking it to the
Vietnam War. King’s public approval ratings dropped precipitously among
whites and blacks for his uncompromising stance.

His final speech, in Memphis, Tenn., where he aided 1,000 striking
black sanitation workers, concluded with biblical references to having
seen the “promised land,” and is noteworthy for its rhetorical and political combativeness.

King’s political evolution remains unacknowledged by most of the
American public, leading to the irony of critics of the
#BlackLivesMatter movement asserting that contemporary protesters would
do well to follow in the footsteps of King and other heroes of the civil
rights era. Missing from such criticism is the reality of the later
King, the prophet who, after being recognized in his own lifetime, was
thoroughly disregarded by past allies, politicians and the public for
speaking truth to power in a manner that made the entire nation
uncomfortable.

At the end of his life, King asserted that racism, militarism and materialism represented the greatest threats to humanity that the world had ever seen. History has proved King’s words to be prophetic.

The massive protests that erupted last year in the wake of grand jury
decisions not to indict police officers in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten
Island, N.Y., represent, in both symbolic and substantive ways, a
continuation of the radical King’s political work.

Updating King’s “triple threat” means understanding the ways in which
the militarism of which he spoke has invaded our domestic sphere
through mass incarceration; how materialism promotes the largest income
and wealth gap between the rich and poor in American history; and how
institutional racism contours our current social, political and economic
systems.

King spent his whole life preaching an unusually eloquent message
that black lives mattered. His two most famous political sermons (at the
March on Washington in 1963 and in Montgomery, Ala., in 1965) were
broadcast by every major television network.

Yet there were many more radical speeches to be made, ones that
linked political revolution to radical policy changes that went beyond
the vote, that advocated economic redistribution and an end to war,
along with a “revolution in values”
designed to transform the very foundations of American democracy. It is
this King whom #BlackLivesMatter demonstrations most accurately reflect
and honor, even as he’s the one our nation continues to ignore.

Assassination Conspiracy Trial

Reprint from the King Center:

After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in
Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on
December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. In a
press statement held the following day in Atlanta, Mrs. Coretta Scott
King welcomed the verdict, saying , “There is abundant evidence of a
major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin
Luther King, Jr. And the civil court’s unanimous verdict has validated
our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel
that justice has been well served in their deliberations. This verdict
is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for
America. It is a great victory for truth itself. It is important to know
that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury
deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence
that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the
conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies,
were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also
affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James
Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.
I want to make it clear that my family has no interest in retribution.
Instead, our sole concern has been that the full truth of the
assassination has been revealed and adjudicated in a court of law… My
husband once said, “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends
toward justice.” To-day, almost 32 years after my husband and the father
of my four children was assassinated, I feel that the jury’s verdict
clearly affirms this principle. With this faith, we can begin the 21st
century and the new millennium with a new spirit of hope and healing.”

Across from the LorraineMotel was Fire Station no. 2. Who ordered … to the question did Loyd Jowers participate in a conspiracy to do harm to Dr. Martin Luther King, your …

www.tucradio.org/Who_killed_MLK.pdfIn
the complaint filed by the King family, “King versus Jowers and Other
Unknown Co-Conspirators,” the only named defendant, Loyd Jowers, was
never their primary concern. As soon became evident in court, the real
defendants were the anonymous co-conspirators who stood in the shadows
behind Jowers, the former owner of a Memphis bar and grill. The Kings
and Pepper were in effect charging U.S. intelligence agencies —
particularly the FBI and Army intelligence — with organizing,
subcontracting, and covering up the assassination. Such a charge
guarantees almost insuperable obstacles to its being argued in a court
within the United States. Judicially it is an unwelcome beast.

I can
hardly believe the fact that, apart from the courtroom participants,
only Memphis TV reporter Wendell Stacy and I attended from beginning to
end this historic three-and-one-half week trial. Because of journalistic
neglect scarcely anyone else in this land of ours even knows what went
on in it. After critical testimony was given in the trial’s second week
before an almost empty gallery, Barbara Reis, U.S. correspondent for the
Lisbon daily Publico who was there several days, turned to me
and said, “Everything in the U.S. is the trial of the century. O.J.
Simpson’s trial was the trial of the century. Clinton’s trial was the
trial of the century. But this is the trial of the century, and who’s here?”

Many
qualifiers have been attached to the verdict in the King case. It came
not in criminal court but in civil court, where the standards of
evidence are much lower than in criminal court. (For example, the
plaintiffs used unsworn testimony made on audiotapes and videotapes.)
Furthermore, the King family as plaintiffs and Jowers as defendant
agreed ahead of time on much of the evidence.

But
these observations are not entirely to the point. Because of the
government’s “sovereign immunity,” it is not possible to put a U.S.
intelligence agency in the dock of a U.S. criminal court. Such a step
would require authorization by the federal government, which is not
likely to indict itself. Thanks to the conjunction of a civil court, an
independent judge with a sense of history, and a courageous family and
lawyer, a spiritual breakthrough to an unspeakable truth occurred in
Memphis. It allowed at least a few people (and hopefully many more
through them) to see the forces behind King’s martyrdom and to feel the
responsibility we all share for it through our government. In the end,
twelve jurors, six black and six white, said to everyone willing to
hear: guilty as charged.

We can also thank the unlikely figure of Loyd Jowers for providing a way into that truth.

Loyd
Jowers: When the frail, 73-year-old Jowers became ill after three days
in court, Judge Swearengen excused him. Jowers did not testify and said
through his attorney, Lewis Garrison, that he would plead the Fifth
Amendment if subpoenaed. His discretion was too late. In 1993 against
the advice of Garrison, Jowers had gone public. Prompted by William
Pepper’s progress as James Earl Ray’s attorney in uncovering Jowers’s
role in the assassination, Jowers told his story to Sam Donaldson on Prime Time Live.
He said he had been asked to help in the murder of King and was told
there would be a decoy (Ray) in the plot. He was also told that the
police “wouldn’t be there that night.”

In
that interview, the transcript of which was read to the jury in the
Memphis courtroom, Jowers said the man who asked him to help in the
murder was a Mafia-connected produce dealer named Frank Liberto.
Liberto, now deceased, had a courier deliver $100,000 for Jowers to hold
at his restaurant, Jim’s Grill, the back door of which opened onto the
dense bushes across from the Lorraine Motel. Jowers said he was visited
the day before the murder by a man named Raul, who brought a rifle in a
box.

As Mike Vinson reported in the March-April Probe,
other witnesses testified to their knowledge of Liberto’s involvement
in King’s slaying. Store-owner John McFerren said he arrived around 5:15
pm, April 4, 1968, for a produce pick-up at Frank Liberto’s warehouse
in Memphis. (King would be shot at 6:0l pm.) When he approached the
warehouse office, McFerren overheard Liberto on the phone inside saying,
“Shoot the son-of-a-bitch on the balcony.”

Café-owner
Lavada Addison, a friend of Liberto’s in the late 1970’s, testified
that Liberto had told her he “had Martin Luther King killed.” Addison’s
son, Nathan Whitlock, said when he learned of this conversation he asked
Liberto point-blank if he had killed King.

“[Liberto]
said, `I didn’t kill the nigger but I had it done.’ I said, `What about
that other son-of-a-bitch taking credit for it?’ He says, `Ahh, he
wasn’t nothing but a troublemaker from Missouri. He was a front man . . .
a setup man.'”

The
jury also heard a tape recording of a two-hour-long confession Jowers
made at a fall 1998 meeting with Martin Luther King’s son Dexter and
former UN Ambassador Andrew Young. On the tape Jowers says that meetings
to plan the assassination occurred at Jim’s Grill. He said the planners
included undercover Memphis Police Department officer Marrell
McCollough (who now works for the Central Intelligence Agency, and who
is referenced in the trial transcript as Merrell McCullough), MPD
Lieutentant Earl Clark (who died in 1987), a third police officer, and
two men Jowers did not know but thought were federal agents.

Young,
who witnessed the assassination, can be heard on the tape identifying
McCollough as the man kneeling beside King’s body on the balcony in a
famous photograph. According to witness Colby Vernon Smith, McCollough
had infiltrated a Memphis community organizing group, the Invaders,
which was working with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In
his trial testimony Young said the MPD intelligence agent was “the guy
who ran up [the balcony stairs] with us to see Martin.”

Jowers
says on the tape that right after the shot was fired he received a
smoking rifle at the rear door of Jim’s Grill from Clark. He broke the
rifle down into two pieces and wrapped it in a tablecloth. Raul picked
it up the next day. Jowers said he didn’t actually see who fired the
shot that killed King, but thought it was Clark, the MPD’s best
marksman.

Young
testified that his impression from the 1998 meeting was that the aging,
ailing Jowers “wanted to get right with God before he died, wanted to
confess it and be free of it.” Jowers denied, however, that he knew the
plot’s purpose was to kill King — a claim that seemed implausible to
Dexter King and Young. Jowers has continued to fear jail, and he had
directed Garrison to defend him on the grounds that he didn’t know the
target of the plot was King. But his interview with Donaldson suggests
he was not naïve on this point.

Loyd Jowers’s story opened the door to testimony that explored the systemic nature of the murder in seven other basic areas:

James Lawson, King’s friend and an organizer with SCLC,
testified that King’s stands on Vietnam and the Poor People’s Campaign
had created enemies in Washington. He said King’s speech at New York’s Riverside Church
on April 4, 1967, which condemned the Vietnam War and identified the
U.S. government as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world
today,” provoked intense hostility in the White House and FBI.

Hatred
and fear of King deepened, Lawson said, in response to his plan to hold
the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C. King wanted to shut down
the nation’s capital in the spring of 1968 through massive civil
disobedience until the government agreed to abolish poverty. King saw
the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike as the beginning of a nonviolent
revolution that would redistribute income.

“I have no doubt,” Lawson said, “that the government viewed all this seriously enough to plan his assassination.”

Coretta
Scott King testified that her husband had to return to Memphis in early
April 1968 because of a violent demonstration there for which he had
been blamed. Moments after King arrived in Memphis to join the
sanitation workers’ march there on March 28, 1968, the scene turned
violent — subverted by government provocateurs, Lawson said. Thus King
had to return to Memphis on April 3 and prepare for a truly nonviolent
march, Mrs. King said, to prove SCLC could still carry out a nonviolent
campaign in Washington.

On the night of April 3, 1968, Floyd E. Newsum, a black
firefighter and civil rights activist, heard King’s “I’ve Been to the
Mountain Top” speech at the Mason Temple in Memphis. On his return home,
Newsum returned a phone call from his lieutenant and was told he had
been temporarily transferred, effective April 4, from Fire Station 2,
located across the street from the Lorraine Motel, to Fire Station 31.
Newsum testified that he was not needed at the new station. However, he
was needed at his old station because his departure left it “out of
service unless somebody else was detailed to my company in my stead.”
After making many queries, Newsum was eventually told he had been
transferred by request of the police department.

The
only other black firefighter at Fire Station 2, Norvell E. Wallace,
testified that he, too, received orders from his superior officer on the
night of April 3 for a temporary transfer to a fire station far removed
from the Lorraine Motel. He was later told vaguely that he had been
threatened.

Wallace
guessed it was because “I was putting out fires,” he told the jury with
a smile. Asked if he ever received a satisfactory explanation for his
transfer Wallace answered, “No. Never did. Not to this day.”

In the March-April Probe,
Mike Vinson described the similar removal of Ed Redditt, a black
Memphis Police Department detective, from his Fire Station 2
surveillance post two hours before King’s murder.

To
understand the Redditt incident, it is important to note that it was
Redditt himself who initiated his watch on Dr. King from the firehouse
across the street. Redditt testified that when King’s party and the
police accompanying them (including Detective Redditt) arrived from the
airport at the Lorraine Motel on April 3, he “noticed something that was
unusual.” When Inspector Don Smith, who was in charge of security, told
Redditt he could leave, Redditt “noticed there was nobody else there.
In the past when we were assigned to Dr. King [when Redditt had been
part of a black security team for King], we stayed with him. I saw
nobody with him. So I went across the street and asked the Fire
Department could we come in and observe from the rear, which we did.”
Given Redditt’s concerns for King’s safety, his particular watch on the
Lorraine may not have fit into others’ plans.

Redditt
testified that late in the afternoon of April 4, MPD Intelligence
Officer Eli Arkin came to Fire Station 2 to take him to Central
Headquarters. There Police and Fire Director Frank Holloman (formerly an
FBI agent for 25 years, seven of them as supervisor of J. Edgar
Hoover’s office) ordered Redditt home, against his wishes and
accompanied by Arkin. The reason Holloman gave Redditt for his removal
from the King watch Redditt had initiated the day before was that his
life had been threatened.

In
an interview after the trial, Redditt told me the story of how his 1978
testimony on this question before the House Select Committee on
Assassinations was part of a heavily pressured cover-up. “It was a
farce,” he said, “a total farce.”

Redditt
had been subpoenaed by the HSCA to testify, as he came to realize, not
so much on his strange removal from Fire Station 2 as the fact that he
had spoken about it openly to writers and researchers. The HSCA focused
narrowly on the discrepancy between Redditt’s surveiling King (as he was
doing) and acting as security (an impression Redditt had given writers
interviewing him) in order to discredit the story of his removal.
Redditt was first grilled by the committee for eight straight hours in a
closed executive session. After a day of hostile questioning, Redditt
finally said late in the afternoon, “I came here as a friend of the
investigation, not as an enemy of the investigation. You don’t want to
deal with the truth.” He told the committee angrily that if the secret
purpose behind the King conspiracy was, like the JFK conspiracy, “to
protect the country, just tell the American people! They’ll be happy!
And quit fooling the folks and trying to pull the wool over their eyes.”

When
the closed hearing was over, Redditt received a warning call from a
friend in the White House who said, “Man, your life isn’t worth a wooden
nickel.”

Redditt
said his public testimony the next day “was a set-up”: “The bottom line
on that one was that Senator Baker decided that I wouldn’t go into this
open hearing without an attorney. When the lawyer and I arrived at the
hearing, we were ushered right back out across town to the executive
director in charge of the investigation. [We] looked through a book, to
look at the questions and answers.”

“So
in essence what they were saying was: `This is what you’re going to
answer to, and this is how you’re going to answer.’ It was all made up
— all designed, questions and answers, what to say and what not to say.
A total farce.”

Former
MPD Captain Jerry Williams followed Redditt to the witness stand.
Williams had been responsible for forming a special security unit of
black officers whenever King came to Memphis (the unit Redditt had
served on earlier). Williams took pride in providing the best possible
protection for Dr. King, which included, he said, advising him never to
stay at the Lorraine “because we couldn’t furnish proper security
there.” (“It was just an open view,” he explained to me later, “Anybody
could . . . There was no protection at all. To me that was a set-up from
the very beginning.”)

Hatred and
fear of King deepened, Lawson said, in response to his plan to hold the
Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C. King wanted to shut down the
nation’s capital in the spring of 1968 through massive civil
disobedience until the government agreed to abolish poverty. King saw
the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike as the beginning of a nonviolent
revolution that would redistribute income. “I have no doubt,” Lawson
said, “that the government viewed all this seriously enough to plan his
assassination.”

For
King’s April 3, 1968 arrival, however, Williams was for some reason not
asked to form the special black bodyguard. He was told years later by
his inspector (a man whom Jowers identified as a participant in the
planning meetings at Jim’s Grill) that the change occurred because
somebody in King’s entourage had asked specifically for no black
security officers. Williams told the jury he was bothered by the
omission “even to this day.”

Leon
Cohen, a retired New York City police officer, testified that in 1968
he had become friendly with the Lorraine Motel’s owner and manager,
Walter Bailey (now deceased). On the morning after King’s murder, Cohen
spoke with a visibly upset Bailey outside his office at the Lorraine.
Bailey told Cohen about a strange request that had forced him to change
King’s room to the location where he was shot.

Bailey
explained that the night before King’s arrival he had received a call
“from a member of Dr. King’s group in Atlanta.” The caller (whom Bailey
said he knew but referred to only by the pronoun “he”) wanted the motel
owner to change King’s room. Bailey said he was adamantly opposed to
moving King, as instructed, from an inner court room behind the motel
office (which had better security) to an outside balcony room exposed to
public view.

“If they had listened to me,” Bailey said, “this wouldn’t have happened.”

Philip Melanson, author of the Martin Luther King Assassination (1991),
described his investigation into the April 4 pullback of four tactical
police units that had been patrolling the immediate vicinity of the
Lorraine Motel. Melanson asked MPD Inspector Sam Evans (now deceased),
commander of the units, why they were pulled back the morning of April
4, in effect making an assassin’s escape much easier. Evans said he gave
the order at the request of a local pastor connected with King’s party,
Rev. Samuel Kyles. (Melanson wrote in his book that Kyles emphatically
denied making any such request.) Melanson said the idea that MPD
security would be determined at such a time by a local pastor’s request
made no sense whatsoever.

Olivia
Catling lived a block away from the Lorraine on Mulberry Street.
Catling had planned to walk down the street the evening of April 4 in
the hope of catching a glimpse of King at the motel. She testified that
when she heard the shot a little after six o’clock, she said, “Oh, my
God, Dr. King is at that hotel!” She ran with her two children to the
corner of Mulberry and Huling streets, just north of the Lorraine. She
saw a man in a checkered shirt come running out of the alley beside a
building across from the Lorraine. The man jumped into a green 1965
Chevrolet just as a police car drove up behind him. He gunned the
Chevrolet around the corner and up Mulberry past Catling’s house moving
her to exclaim, “It’s going to take us six months to pay for the rubber
he’s burning up!!” The police, she said, ignored the man and blocked off
a street, leaving his car free to go the opposite way.

I
visited Catling in her home, and she told me the man she had seen
running was not James Earl Ray. “I will go into my grave saying that was
not Ray, because the gentleman I saw was heavier than Ray.”

“The
police,” she told me, “asked not one neighbor [around the Lorraine],
`What did you see?’ Thirty-one years went by. Nobody came and asked one
question. I often thought about that. I even had nightmares over that,
because they never said anything. How did they let him get away?”

Catling
also testified that from her vantage point on the corner of Mulberry
and Huling she could see a fireman standing alone across from the motel
when the police drove up. She heard him say to the police, “The shot
came from that clump of bushes,” indicating the heavily overgrown brushy
area facing the Lorraine and adjacent to Fire Station 2.

Earl Caldwell was a New York Times reporter in his room
at the Lorraine Motel the evening of April 4. In videotaped testimony,
Caldwell said he heard what he thought was a bomb blast at 6:00 p.m.
When he ran to the door and looked out, he saw a man crouched in the
heavy part of the bushes across the street. The man was looking over at
the Lorraine’s balcony. Caldwell wrote an article about the figure in
the bushes but was never questioned about what he had seen by any
authorities.

In
a 1993 affidavit from former SCLC official James Orange that was read
into the record, Orange said that on April 4, “James Bevel and I were
driven around by Marrell McCollough, a person who at that time we knew
to be a member of the Invaders, a local community organizing group, and
who we subsequently learned was an undercover agent for the Memphis
Police Department and who now works for the Central Intelligence Agency .
. . [After the shot, when Orange saw Dr. King’s leg dangling over the
balcony], I looked back and saw the smoke. It couldn’t have been more
than five to ten seconds. The smoke came out of the brush area on the
opposite side of the street from the Lorraine Motel. I saw it rise up
from the bushes over there. From that day to this time I have never had
any doubt that the fatal shot, the bullet which ended Dr. King’s life,
was fired by a sniper concealed in the brush area behind the derelict
buildings.

“I
also remember then turning my attention back to the balcony and seeing
Marrell McCollough up on the balcony kneeling over Dr. King, looking as
though he was checking Dr. King for life signs.

“I
also noticed, quite early the next morning around 8 or 9 o’clock, that
all of the bushes and brush on the hill were cut down and cleaned up. It
was as though the entire area of the bushes from behind the rooming
house had been cleared . . .

“I will always remember the puff of white smoke and the cut brush and having never been given a satisfactory explanation.

“When I tried to tell the police at the scene as best I saw they told me to be quiet and to get out of the way.

“I was never interviewed or asked what I saw by any law enforcement authority in all of the time since 1968.”

Also
read into the record were depositions made by Solomon Jones to the FBI
and to the Memphis police. Jones was King’s chauffeur in Memphis. The
FBI document, dated April 13, 1968, says that after King was shot, when
Jones looked across Mulberry Street into the brushy area, “he got a
quick glimpse of a person with his back toward Mulberry Street. . . .
This person was moving rather fast, and he recalls that he believed he
was wearing some sort of light-colored jacket with some sort of a hood
or parka.” In his 11:30 p.m., April 4, 1968 police interview, Jones
provides the same basic information concerning a person leaving the
brushy area hurriedly.

Maynard
Stiles, who in 1968 was a senior official in the Memphis Sanitation
Department, confirmed in his testimony that the bushes near the rooming
house were cut down. At about 7:00 a.m. on April 5, Stiles told the
jury, he received a call from MPD Inspector Sam Evans “requesting
assistance in clearing brush and debris from a vacant lot in the
vicinity of the assassination.” Stiles called another superintendent of
sanitation, who assembled a crew. “They went to that site, and under the
direction of the police department, whoever was in charge there,
proceeded with the clean-up in a slow, methodical, meticulous manner.”
Stiles identified the site as an area overgrown with brush and bushes
across from the Lorraine Motel.

Within
hours of King’s assassination, the crime scene that witnesses were
identifying to the Memphis police as a cover for the shooter had been
sanitized by orders of the police.

Judge Joe Brown, who had presided over two years of hearings
on the rifle, testified that “67% of the bullets from my tests did not
match the Ray rifle.” He added that the unfired bullets found wrapped
with it in a blanket were metallurgically different from the bullet
taken from King’s body, and therefore were from a different lot of
ammunition. And because the rifle’s scope had not been sited, Brown
said, “this weapon literally could not have hit the broad side of a
barn.” Holding up the 30.06 Remington 760 Gamemaster rifle, Judge Brown
told the jury, “It is my opinion that this is not the murder weapon.”
Circuit Court Judge Arthur Hanes Jr. of Birmingham, Alabama,
had been Ray’s attorney in 1968. (On the eve of his trial, Ray replaced
Hanes and his father, Arthur Hanes Sr., by Percy Foreman, a decision Ray
told the Haneses one week later was the biggest mistake of his life.)
Hanes testified that in the summer of 1968 he interviewed Guy Canipe,
owner of the Canipe Amusement Company. Canipe was a witness to the
dropping in his doorway of a bundle that held a trove of James Earl Ray
memorabilia, including the rifle, unfired bullets, and a radio with
Ray’s prison identification number on it. This dropped bundle, heaven
(or otherwise) sent for the State’s case against Ray, can be accepted as
credible evidence through a willing suspension of disbelief. As Judge
Hanes summarized the State’s lone-assassin theory (with reference to an
exhibit depicting the scene), “James Earl Ray had fired the shot from
the bathroom on that second floor, come down that hallway into his room
and carefully packed that box, tied it up, then had proceeded across the
walkway the length of the building to the back where that stair from
that door came up, had come down the stairs out the door, placed the
Browning box containing the rifle and the radio there in the Canipe
entryway.” Then Ray presumably got in his car seconds before the
police’s arrival, driving from downtown Memphis to Atlanta unchallenged
in his white Mustang.

Concerning
his interview with the witness who was the cornerstone of this theory,
Judge Hanes told the jury that Guy Canipe (now deceased) provided
“terrific evidence”: “He said that the package was dropped in his
doorway by a man headed south down Main Street on foot, and that this
happened at about ten minutes before the shot was fired [emphasis added].”

Hanes
thought Canipe’s witnessing the bundle-dropping ten minutes before the
shot was very credible for another reason. It so happened (as confirmed
by Philip Melanson’s research) that at 6:00 p.m. one of the MPD tactical
units that had been withdrawn earlier by Inspector Evans, TACT 10, had
returned briefly to the area with its 16 officers for a rest break at
Fire Station 2. Thus, as Hanes testified, with the firehouse brimming
with police, some already watching King across the street, “when they
saw Dr. King go down, the fire house erupted like a beehive . . . In
addition to the time involved [in Ray’s presumed odyssey from the
bathroom to the car], it was circumstantially almost impossible to
believe that somebody had been able to throw that [rifle] down and
leaave right in the face of that erupting fire station.”

When
I spoke with Judge Hanes after the trial about the startling evidence
he had received from Canipe, he commented, “That’s what I’ve been saying
for 30 years.”
William Hamblin testified not about the rifle thrown down in
the Canipe doorway but rather the smoking rifle Loyd Jowers said he
received at his back door from Earl Clark right after the shooting.
Hamblin recounted a story he was told many times by his friend James
McCraw, who had died.

James
McCraw is already well-known to researchers as the taxi driver who
arrived at the rooming house to pick up Charlie Stephens shortly before
6:00 p.m. on April 4. In a deposition read earlier to the jury, McCraw
said he found Stephens in his room lying on his bed too drunk to get up,
so McCraw turned out the light and left without him — minutes before
Stephens, according to the State, identified Ray in profile passing down
the hall from the bathroom. McCraw also said the bathroom door next to
Stephen’s room was standing wide open, and there was no one in the
bathroom — where again, according to the State, Ray was then balancing
on the tub, about to squeeze the trigger.

William
Hamblin told the jury that he and fellow cab-driver McCraw were close
friends for about 25 years. Hamblin said he probably heard McCraw tell
the same rifle story 50 times, but only when McCraw had been drinking
and had his defenses down.

In
that story, McCraw said that Loyd Jowers had given him the rifle right
after the shooting. According to Hamblin, “Jowers told him to get the
[rifle] and get it out of here now. [McCraw] said that he grabbed his
beer and snatched it out. He had the rifle rolled up in an oil cloth,
and he leapt out the door and did away with it.” McCraw told Hamblin he
threw the rifle off a bridge into the Mississippi River.

Hamblin
said McCraw never revealed publicly what he knew of the rifle because,
like Jowers, he was afraid of being indicted: “He really wanted to come
out with it, but he was involved in it. And he couldn’t really tell the
truth.”

William
Pepper accepted Hamblin’s testimony about McCraw’s disposal of the
rifle over Jowers’s claim to Dexter King that he gave the rifle to Raul.
Pepper said in his closing argument that the actual murder weapon had
been lying “at the bottom of the Mississippi River for over thirty-one
years.”

Maynard
Stiles, who in 1968 was a senior official in the Memphis Sanitation
Department, confirmed in his testimony that the bushes near the rooming
house were cut down. At about 7:00 a.m. on April 5, Stiles told the
jury, he received a call from MPD Inspector Sam Evans “requesting
assistance in clearing brush and debris from a vacant lot in the
vicinity of the assassination. . . . They went to that site, and under
the direction of the police department, whoever was in charge there,
proceeded with the clean-up in a slow, methodical, meticulous manner.” .
. . Within hours of King’s assassination, the crime scene that
witnesses were identifying to the Memphis police as a cover for the
shooter had been sanitized by orders of the police.
One of the most significant developments in the Memphis trial
was the emergence of the mysterious Raul through the testimony of a
series of witnesses.

In
a 1995 deposition by James Earl Ray that was read to the jury, Ray told
of meeting Raul in Montreal in the summer of 1967, three months after
Ray had escaped from a Missouri prison. According to Ray, Raul guided
Ray’s movements, gave him money for the Mustang car and the rifle, and
used both to set him up in Memphis.

Andrew
Young and Dexter King described their meeting with Jowers and Pepper at
which Pepper had shown Jowers a spread of photographs, and Jowers
picked out one as the person named Raul who brought him the rifle to
hold at Jim’s Grill. Pepper displayed the same spread of photos in
court, and Young and King pointed out the photo Jowers had identified as
Raul. (Private investigator John Billings said in separate testimony
that this picture was a passport photograph from 1961, when Raul had
immigrated from Portugal to the U.S.)

The
additional witnesses who identified the photo as Raul’s included:
British merchant seaman Sidney Carthew, who in a videotaped deposition
from England said he had met Raul (who offered to sell him guns) and a
man he thinks was Ray (who wanted to be smuggled onto his ship) in
Montreal in the summer of 1967; Glenda and Roy Grabow, who recognized
Raul as a gunrunner they knew in Houston in the `60s and `70s and who
told Glenda in a rage that he had killed Martin Luther King; Royce
Wilburn, Glenda’s brother, who also knew Raul in Houston; and British
television producer Jack Saltman, who had obtained the passport photo
and showed it to Ray in prison, who identified it as the photo of the
person who had guided him.

Saltman
and Pepper, working on independent investigations, located Raul in
1995. He was living quietly with his family in the northeastern U.S. It
was there in 1997 that journalist Barbara Reis of the Lisbon Publico,
working on a story about Raul, spoke with a member of his family. Reis
testified that she had spoken in Portuguese to a woman in Raul’s family
who, after first denying any connection to Ray’s Raul, said “they” had
visited them. “Who?” Reis asked. “The government,” said the woman. She
said government agents had visited them three times over a three-year
period. The government, she said, was watching over them and monitoring
their phone calls. The woman took comfort and satisfaction in the fact
that her family (so she believed) was being protected by the government.

In
his closing argument Pepper said of Raul: “Now, as I understand it, the
defense had invited Raul to appear here. He is outside this
jurisdiction, so a subpoena would be futile. But he was asked to appear
here. In earlier proceedings there were attempts to depose him, and he
resisted them. So he has not attempted to come forward at all and tell
his side of the story or to defend himself.”

Carthel Weeden, captain of Fire Station 2 in 1968, testified
that he was on duty the morning of April 4 when two U.S. Army officers
approached him. The officers said they wanted a lookout for the Lorraine
Motel. Weeden said they carried briefcases and indicated they had
cameras. Weeden showed the officers to the roof of the fire station. He
left them at the edge of its northeast corner behind a parapet wall.
From there the Army officers had a bird’s-eye view of Dr. King’s balcony
doorway and could also look down on the brushy area adjacent to the
fire station.

The
testimony of writer Douglas Valentine filled in the background of the
men Carthel Weeden had taken up to the roof of Fire Station 2. While
Valentine was researching his book The Phoenix Program (1990), on
the CIA’s notorious counterintelligence program against Vietnamese
villagers, he talked with veterans in military intelligence who had been
re-deployed from the Vietnam War to the sixties antiwar movement. They
told him that in 1968 the Army’s 111th Military Intelligence Group kept
Martin Luther King under 24-hour-a-day surveillance. Its agents were in
Memphis April 4. As Valentine wrote in The Phoenix Program, they “reportedly watched and took photos while King’s assassin moved into position, took aim, fired, and walked away.”

Testimony
which juror David Morphy later described as “awesome” was that of
former CIA operative Jack Terrell, a whistle-blower in the Iran-Contra
scandal. Terrell, who was dying of liver cancer in Florida, testified by
videotape that his close friend J.D. Hill had confessed to him that he
had been a member of an Army sniper team in Memphis assigned to shoot
“an unknown target” on April 4. After training for a triangular
shooting, the snipers were on their way into Memphis to take up
positions in a watertower and two buildings when their mission was
suddenly cancelled. Hill said he realized, when he learned of King’s
assassination the next day, that the team must have been part of a
contingency plan to kill King if another shooter failed.

Terrell
said J.D. Hill was shot to death. His wife was charged with shooting
Hill (in response to his drinking), but she was not indicted. From the
details of Hill’s death, Terrell thought the story about Hill’s wife
shooting him was a cover, and that his friend had been assassinated. In
an interview, Terrell said the CIA’s heavy censorship of his book Disposable Patriot (1992) included changing the paragraph on J.D. Hill’s death, so that it read as if Terrell thought Hill’s wife was responsible.

Walter Fauntroy, Dr. King’s colleague and a 20-year member of
Congress, chaired the subcommittee of the 1976-78 House Select Committee
on Assassinations that investigated King’s assassination. Fauntroy
testified in Memphis that in the course of the HSCA investigation “it
was apparent that we were dealing with very sophisticated forces.” He
discovered electronic bugs on his phone and TV set. When Richard
Sprague, HSCA’s first chief investigator, said he would make available
all CIA, FBI, and military intelligence records, he became a focus of
controversy. Sprague was forced to resign. His successor made no demands
on U.S. intelligence agencies. Such pressures contributed to the
subcommittee’s ending its investigation, as Fauntroy said, “without
having thoroughly investigated all of the evidence that was apparent.”
Its formal conclusion was that Ray assassinated King, that he probably
had help, and that the government was not involved.

When
I interviewed Fauntroy in a van on his way back to the Memphis Airport,
I asked about the implications of his statements in an April 4, 1997 Atlanta Constitution
article. The article said Fauntroy now believed “Ray did not fire the
shot that killed King and was part of a larger conspiracy that possibly
involved federal law enforcement agencies, ” and added: “Fauntroy said
he kept silent about his suspicions because of fear for himself and his
family.”

Fauntroy
told me that when he left Congress in 1991 he had the opportunity to
read through his files on the King assassination, including raw
materials that he’d never seen before. Among them was information from
J. Edgar Hoover’s logs. There he learned that in the three weeks before
King’s murder the FBI chief held a series of meetings with “persons
involved with the CIA and military intelligence in the Phoenix operation
in Southeast Asia.” Why? Fauntroy also discovered there had been Green
Berets and military intelligence agents in Memphis when King was killed.
“What were they doing there?” he asked.

When
Fauntroy had talked about his decision to write a book about what he’d
“uncovered since the assassination committee closed down,” he was
promptly investigated and charged by the Justice Department with having
violated his financial reports as a member of Congress. His lawyer told
him that he could not understand why the Justice Department would bring
up a charge on the technicality of one misdated check. Fauntroy said he
interpreted the Justice Department’s action to mean: “Look, we’ll get
you on something if you continue this way. . . . I just thought: I’ll
tell them I won’t go and finish the book, because it’s surely not worth
it.”

At
the conclusion of his trial testimony, Fauntroy also spoke about his
fear of an FBI attempt to kill James Earl Ray when he escaped from
Tennessee’s Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in June 1977. Congressman
Fauntroy had heard reports about an FBI SWAT team having been sent into
the area around the prison to shoot Ray and prevent his testifying at
the HSCA hearings. Fauntroy asked HSCA chair Louis Stokes to alert
Tennesssee Governor Ray Blanton to the danger to the HSCA’s star witness
and Blanton’s most famous prisoner. When Stokes did, Blanton called off
the FBI SWAT team, Ray was caught safely by local authorities, and in
Fauntroy’s words, “we all breathed a sigh of relief.”

The
Memphis jury also learned how a 1993-98 Tennessee State investigation
into the King assassination was, if not a cover-up, then an inquiry
noteworthy for its lack of witnesses. Lewis Garrison had subpoenaed the
head of the investigation, Mark Glankler, in an effort to discover
evidence helpful to Jowers’s defense. William Pepper then cross-examined
Glankler on the witnesses he had interviewed in his investigation:

A. No, sir.
So
it goes — downhill. The above is Glankler’s high-water mark: He got
two out of the first ten (if one counts Charles and Peggy Hurley as a
yes). Pepper questioned Glankler about 25 key witnesses. The jury was
familiar with all of them from prior testimony in the trial. Glankler
could recall his office interviewing a total of three. At the
twenty-fifth-named witness, Earl Caldwell, Pepper finally let Glankler
go:

Q. Did you ever interview a former New York Times journalist, a New York Daily News correspondent named Earl Caldwell?

A. Earl Caldwell? Not that I recall.

Q. You never interviewed him in the course of your investigation?

A. I just don’t recall that name.

MR. PEPPER: I have no further comments about this investigation — no further questions for this investigator.

Pepper
went a step beyond saying government agencies were responsible for the
assassination. To whom in turn were those murderous agencies
responsible? Not so much to government officials per se, Pepper
asserted, as to the economic powerholders they represented who stood in
the even deeper shadows behind the FBI, Army Intelligence, and their
affiliates in covert action. By 1968, Pepper told the jury, “And today
it is much worse in my view” — “the decision-making processes in the
United States were the representatives, the footsoldiers of the very
economic interests that were going to suffer as a result of these times
of changes [being actived by King].”

To say that
U.S. government agencies killed Martin Luther King on the verge of the
Poor People’s Campaign is a way into the deeper truth that the economic
powers that be (which dictate the policies of those agencies) killed
him. In the Memphis prelude to the Washington campaign, King posed a
threat to those powers of a non-violent revolutionary force. Just how
determined they were to stop him before he reached Washington was
revealed in the trial by the size and complexity of the plot to kill
him.

The vision behind the trial

In his sprawling, brilliant work that underlies the trial, Orders to Kill
(1995), William Pepper introduced readers to most of the 70 witnesses
who took the stand in Memphis or were cited by deposition, tape, and
other witnesses. To keep this article from reading like either an
encyclopedia or a Dostoevsky novel, I have highlighted only a few.
(Thanks to the King Center, the full trial trascript is available online at http://www.thekingcenter.com/tkc/trial.html.)
What Pepper’s work has accomplished in print and in court can be
measured by the intensity of the media attacks on him, shades of Jim
Garrison. But even Garrison did not gain the support of the Kennedy
family (in his case) or achieve a guilty verdict. The Memphis trial has
opened wide a door to our assassination politics. Anyone who walks
through it is faced by an either/or: to declare naked either the empire
or oneself.

The
King family has chosen the former. The vision behind the trial is at
least as much theirs as it is William Pepper’s, for ultimately it is the
vision of Martin Luther King Jr. Coretta King explained to the jury her
family’s purpose in pursuing the lawsuit against Jowers: “This is not
about money. We’re concerned about the truth, having the truth come out
in a court of law so that it can be documented for all. I’ve always felt
that somehow the truth would be known, and I hoped that I would live to
see it. It is important I think for the sake of healing so many people
— my family, other people, the nation.”

Dexter King, the plaintiffs’ final witness, said the trial was about why his
father had been killed: “From a holistic side, in terms of the people,
in terms of the masses, yes, it has to be dealt with because it is not
about who killed Martin Luther King Jr., my father. It is not
necessarily about all of those details. It is about: Why was he
killed? Because if you answer the why, you will understand the same
things are still happening. Until we address that, we’re all in trouble.
Because if it could happen to him, if it can happen to this family, it
can happen to anybody.

“It
is so amazing for me that as soon as this issue of potential
involvement of the federal government came up, all of a sudden the media
just went totally negative against the family. I couldn’t understand
that. I kept asking my mother, `What is going on?’

“She
reminded me. She said, `Dexter, your dad and I have lived through this
once already. You have to understand that when you take a stand against
the establishment, first, you will be attacked. There is an attempt to
discredit. Second, [an attempt] to try and character-assassinate. And
third, ultimately physical termination or assassination.’

“Now
the truth of the matter is if my father had stopped and not spoken out,
if he had just somehow compromised, he would probably still be here
with us today. But the minute you start talking about redistribution of
wealth and stopping a major conflict, which also has economic
ramifications . . . “

In
his closing argument, William Pepper identified economic power as the
root reason for King’s assassination: “When Martin King opposed the war,
when he rallied people to oppose the war, he was threatening the bottom
lines of some of the largest defense contractors in this country. This
was about money. He was threatening the weapons industry, the hardware,
the armaments industries, that would all lose as a result of the end of
the war.

“The
second aspect of his work that also dealt with money that caused a
great deal of consternation in the circles of power in this land had to
do with his commitment to take a massive group of people to Washington. .
. . Now he began to talk about a redistribution of wealth, in this the
wealthiest country in the world.”

Pepper
went a step beyond saying government agencies were responsible for the
assassination. To whom in turn were those murderous agencies
responsible? Not so much to government officials per se, Pepper
asserted, as to the economic powerholders they represented who stood in
the even deeper shadows behind the FBI, Army Intelligence, and their
affiliates in covert action. By 1968, Pepper told the jury, “And today
it is much worse in my view” — “the decision-making processes in the
United States were the representatives, the footsoldiers of the very
economic interests that were going to suffer as a result of these times
of changes [being actived by King].”

To
say that U.S. government agencies killed Martin Luther King on the
verge of the Poor People’s Campaign is a way into the deeper truth that
the economic powers that be (which dictate the policies of those
agencies) killed him. In the Memphis prelude to the Washington campaign,
King posed a threat to those powers of a non-violent revolutionary
force. Just how determined they were to stop him before he reached
Washington was revealed in the trial by the size and complexity of the
plot to kill him.

Dexter
King testified to the truth of his father’s death with transforming
clarity: “If what you are saying goes against what certain people
believe you should be saying, you will be dealt with — maybe not the
way you are dealt with in China, which is overtly. But you will be dealt
with covertly. The result is the same.

“We
are talking about a political assassination in modern-day times, a
domestic political assassination. Of course, it is ironic, but I was
watching a special on the CIA. They say, `Yes, we’ve participated in
assassinations abroad but, no, we could never do anything like that
domestically.’ Well, I don’t know. . . . Whether you call it CIA or some
other innocuous acronym or agency, killing is killing.

“The
issue becomes: What do we do about this? Do we endorse a policy in this
country, in this life, that says if we don’t agree with someone, the
only means to deal with it is through elimination and termination? I
think my father taught us the opposite, that you can overcome without
violence.

“We’re
not in this to make heads roll. We’re in this to use the teachings that
my father taught us in terms of nonviolent reconciliation. It works. We
know that it works. So we’re not looking to put people in prison. What
we’re looking to do is get the truth out so that this nation can learn
and know officially. If the family of the victim, if we’re saying we’re
willing to forgive and embark upon a process that allows for
reconciliation, why can’t others?”

When
pressed by Pepper to name a specific amount of damages for the death of
his father, Dexter King said, “One hundred dollars.”

The Verdict

The
jury returned with a verdict after two and one-half hours. Judge James
E. Swearengen of Shelby County Circuit Court, a gentle African-American
man in his last few days before retirement, read the verdict aloud. The
courtroom was now crowded with spectators, almost all black.

“In
answer to the question, `Did Loyd Jowers participate in a conspiracy to
do harm to Dr. Martin Luther King?’ your answer is `Yes.'” The man on
my left leaned forward and whispered softly, “Thank you, Jesus.”

The
judge continued: “Do you also find that others, including governmental
agencies, were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by the defendant?’
Your answer to that one is also `Yes.'” An even more heartfelt whisper:
“Thank you, Jesus!”

Perhaps
the lesson of the King assassination is that our government understands
the power of nonviolence better than we do, or better than we want to.
In the spring of 1968, when Martin King was marching (and Robert Kennedy
was campaigning), King was determined that massive, nonviolent civil
disobedience would end the domination of democracy by corporate and
military power. The powers that be took Martin Luther King seriously.
They dealt with him in Memphis.

Thirty-two years
after Memphis, we know that the government that now honors Dr. King
with a national holiday also killed him. As will once again become
evident when the Justice Department releases the findings of its
“limited re-investigation” into King’s death, the government (as a
footsoldier of corporate power) is continuing its cover-up — just as it
continues to do in the closely related murders of John and Robert
Kennedy and Malcolm X.

David
Morphy, the only juror to grant an interview, said later: “We can look
back on it and say that we did change history. But that’s not why we did
it. It was because there was an overwhelming amount of evidence and
just too many odd coincidences.

“Everything
from the police department being pulled back, to the death threat on
Redditt, to the two black firefighters being pulled off, to the military
people going up on top of the fire station, even to them going back to
that point and cutting down the trees. Who in their right mind would go
and destroy a crime scene like that the morning after? It was just very,
very odd.”

I
drove the few blocks to the house on Mulberry Street, one block north
of the Lorraine Motel (now the National Civil Rights Museum). When I
rapped loudly on Olivia Catling’s security door, she was several minutes
in coming. She said she’d had the flu. I told her the jury’s verdict,
and she smiled. “So I can sleep now. For years I could still hear that
shot. After 31 years, my mind is at ease. So I can sleep now, knowing
that some kind of peace has been brought to the King family. And that’s
the best part about it.”

Perhaps
the lesson of the King assassination is that our government understands
the power of nonviolence better than we do, or better than we want to.
In the spring of 1968, when Martin King was marching (and Robert Kennedy
was campaigning), King was determined that massive, nonviolent civil
disobedience would end the domination of democracy by corporate and
military power. The powers that be took Martin Luther King seriously.
They dealt with him in Memphis.

Thirty-two
years after Memphis, we know that the government that now honors Dr.
King with a national holiday also killed him. As will once again become
evident when the Justice Department releases the findings of its
“limited re-investigation” into King’s death, the government (as a
footsoldier of corporate power) is continuing its cover-up — just as it
continues to do in the closely related murders of John and Robert
Kennedy and Malcolm X.

The
faithful in a nonviolent movement that hopes to change the distribution
of wealth and power in the U.S.A. — as Dr. King’s vision, if made
real, would have done in 1968 — should be willing to receive the same
kind of reward that King did in Memphis. As each of our religious
traditions has affirmed from the beginning, that recurring story of
martyrdom (“witness”) is one of ultimate transformation and cosmic good
news

Connecticut Shooting Victims’ Stories Begin To Emerge

Most died at the very start of their young lives, tiny victims taken
in a way not fit for anyone regardless of age. Others found their life’s
work in sheltering little ones, teaching them, caring for them,
treating them as their own. After the gunfire ended Friday at Sandy Hook
Elementary School, the trail of loss was more than many could bear: 20
students and six adults at the school, the gunman’s mother at home, and
the gunman himself.

The images of Olivia Engel will live far beyond her short lifetime.
There she is, visiting with Santa Claus, or feasting on a slice of
birthday cake. There’s the one of her swinging a pink baseball bat, and
another posing on a boat. In some, she models a pretty white dress; in
others, she makes a silly face.

Dan Merton, a longtime friend of the girl’s family, says he could
never forget the child, and he has much to say when he thinks of her.

“She loved attention,” he said. “She had perfect manners, perfect table manners. She was the teacher’s pet, the line leader.”

On Friday, Merton said, she was simply excited to go to school and then return home and make a gingerbread house.

“Her only crime,” he said, “is being a wiggly, smiley 6-year-old.”

___

DAWN HOCHSPRUNG, 47, principal

Dawn Hochsprung’s pride in Sandy Hook Elementary was clear. She
regularly tweeted photos from her time as principal there, giving
indelible glimpses of life at a place now known for tragedy. Just this
week, it was an image of fourth-graders rehearsing for their winter
concert; days before that, the tiny hands of kindergartners exchanging
play money at their makeshift grocery store.

She viewed her school as a model, telling The Newtown Bee in 2010
that “I don’t think you could find a more positive place to bring
students to every day.” She had worked to make Sandy Hook a place of
safety, too, and in October, the 47-year-old Hochsprung shared a picture
of the school’s evacuation drill with the message “safety first.” When
the unthinkable came, she was ready to defend.

Officials said she died while lunging at the gunman in an attempt to overtake him.

“She had an extremely likable style about her,” said Gerald Stomski,
first selectman of Woodbury, where Hochsprung lived and had taught. “She
was an extremely charismatic principal while she was here.”

___

MADELEINE HSU, 6

Dr. Matthew Velsmid was at Madeleine’s house on Saturday, tending to
her stricken family. He said the family did not want to comment.

Velsmid said that after hearing of the shooting, he went to the
triage area to provide medical assistance but there were no injuries to
treat.

“We were waiting for casualties to come out, and there was nothing.
There was no need, unfortunately,” he said. “This is the darkest thing
I’ve ever walked into, by far.”

Velsmid’s daughter, who attends another school, lost three of her friends.

___

CATHERINE HUBBARD, 6

A family friend turned reporters away from the house, but Catherine’s
parents released a statement expressing gratitude to emergency
responders and for the support of the community.

“We are greatly saddened by the loss of our beautiful daughter,
Catherine Violet and our thoughts and prayers are with the other
families who have been affected by this tragedy,” Jennifer and Matthew
Hubbard said. “We ask that you continue to pray for us and the other
families who have experienced loss in this tragedy.”

___

CHASE KOWALSKI, 7

Chase Kowalski was always outside, playing in the backyard, riding
his bicycle. Just last week, he was visiting neighbor Kevin Grimes,
telling him about completing – and winning – his first mini-triathlon.

“You couldn’t think of a better child,” Grimes said.

Grimes’ own five children all attended Sandy Hook, too. Cars lined up
outside the Kowalskis’ ranch home Saturday, and a state trooper’s car
idled in the driveway. Grimes spoke of the boy only in the present
tense.

___

NANCY LANZA, 52, gunman’s mother

She once was known simply for the game nights she hosted and the
holiday decorations she put up at her house. Now Nancy Lanza is known as
her son’s first victim.

Authorities say her 20-year-old son Adam gunned her down before
killing 26 others at Sandy Hook. The two shared a home in a well-to-do
Newtown neighborhood, but details were slow to emerge of who she was and
what might have led her son to carry out such horror.

Kingston, N.H., Police Chief Donald Briggs Jr. said Nancy Lanza once
lived in the community and was a kind, considerate and loving person.
The former stockbroker at John Hancock in Boston was well-respected,
Briggs said.

Court records show Lanza and her ex-husband, Peter Lanza, filed for
divorce in 2008. He lives in Stamford and is a tax director at General
Electric. A neighbor, Rhonda Cullens, said she knew Nancy Lanza from
get-togethers she had hosted to play Bunco, a dice game. She said her
neighbor had enjoyed gardening.

“She was a very nice lady,” Cullens said. “She was just like all the rest of us in the neighborhood, just a regular person.”

___

JESSE LEWIS, 6

Six-year-old Jesse Lewis had hot chocolate with his favorite
breakfast sandwich – sausage, egg and cheese – at the neighborhood deli
before going to school Friday morning.

Jesse and his parents were regulars at the Misty Vale Deli in Sandy
Hook, Conn., owner Angel Salazar told The Wall Street Journal.

“He was always friendly; he always liked to talk,” Salazar said.

Jesse’s family has a collection of animals he enjoyed playing with, and he was learning to ride horseback.

Family friend Barbara McSperrin told the Journal that Jesse was “a typical 6-year-old little boy, full of life.”

___

ANA MARQUEZ-GREENE, 6

A year ago, 6-year-old Ana Marquez-Greene was reveling in holiday
celebrations with her extended family on her first trip to Puerto Rico.
This year will be heartbreakingly different.

The girl’s grandmother, Elba Marquez, said the family moved to
Connecticut just two months ago, drawn from Canada, in part, by Sandy
Hook’s sterling reputation. The grandmother’s brother, Jorge Marquez, is
mayor of a Puerto Rican town and said the child’s 9-year-old brother
also was at the school but escaped safely.

Elba Marquez had just visited the new home over Thanksgiving and is
perplexed by what happened. “What happened does not match up with the
place where they live,” she said.

A video spreading across the Internet shows a confident Ana hitting
every note as she sings “Come, Thou Almighty King.” She flashes a big
grin and waves to the camera when she’s done.

Jorge Marquez confirmed the girl’s father is saxophonist Jimmy
Greene, who wrote on Facebook that he was trying to “work through this
nightmare.”

“As much as she’s needed here and missed by her mother, brother and
me, Ana beat us all to paradise,” he wrote. “I love you sweetie girl.”

___

JAMES MATTIOLI, 6

The upstate New York town of Sherrill is thinking of Cindy Mattioli,
who grew up there and lost her son James in the school shooting in
Connecticut.

“It’s a terrible tragedy, and we’re a tight community,” Mayor William
Vineall told the Utica Observer-Dispatch. “Everybody will be there for
them, and our thoughts and prayers are there for them.”

James’ grandparents, Jack and Kathy Radley, still live in the city, the newspaper reported.

___

ANNE MARIE MURPHY, 52, teacher

A happy soul. A good mother, wife and daughter. Artistic, fun-loving, witty and hardworking.

Remembering their daughter, Anne Marie Murphy, her parents had no
shortage of adjectives to offer Newsday. When news of the shooting
broke, Hugh and Alice McGowan waited for word of their daughter as hours
ticked by. And then it came.

Authorities told the couple their daughter was a hero who helped
shield some of her students from the rain of bullets. As the grim news
arrived, the victim’s mother reached for her rosary.

“You don’t expect your daughter to be murdered,” her father told the newspaper. “It happens on TV. It happens elsewhere.”

___

EMILIE PARKER, 6

Quick to cheer up those in need of a smile, Emilie Parker never missed a chance to draw a picture or make a card.

Her father, Robbie Parker, fought back tears as he described the
beautiful, blond, always-smiling girl who loved to try new things,
except foods.

Parker, one of the first parents to publicly talk about his loss,
expressed no animosity for the gunman, even as he struggled to explain
the death to his other two children, ages 3 and 4. He’s sustained by the
fact that the world is better for having had Emilie in it.

“I’m so blessed to be her dad,” he said.

___

NOAH POZNER, 6

Noah was “smart as a whip,” gentle but with a rambunctious streak,
said his uncle, Alexis Haller of Woodinville, Wash. Noah’s twin sister
Arielle, assigned to a different classroom, survived the shooting. He
called her his best friend, and with their 8-year-old sister, Sophia,
they were inseparable.

“They were always playing together, they loved to do things
together,” Haller said. When his mother, a nurse, would tell him she
loved him, he would answer, “Not as much as I love you, Mom.”

Haller said Noah loved to read and liked to figure out how things
worked mechanically. For his birthday two weeks ago, he got a new Wii.

“He was just a really lively, smart kid,” Haller said. “He would have
become a great man, I think. He would have grown up to be a great dad.”

___

LAUREN GABRIELLE ROUSSEAU, 30, teacher

Lauren Rousseau had spent years working as a substitute teacher and
doing other jobs. So she was thrilled when she finally realized her goal
this fall to become a full-time teacher at Sandy Hook.

Her mother, Teresa Rousseau, a copy editor at the Danbury News-Times,
released a statement Saturday that said state police told them just
after midnight that she was among the victims.

“Lauren wanted to be a teacher from before she even went to
kindergarten,” she said. “We will miss her terribly and will take
comfort knowing that she had achieved that dream.”

Her mother said she was thrilled to get the job.

“It was the best year of her life,” she told the newspaper.

Rousseau has been called gentle, spirited and active. She had planned
to see “The Hobbit” with her boyfriend Friday and had baked cupcakes
for a party they were to attend afterward. She was born in Danbury, and
attended Danbury High, college at the University of Connecticut and
graduate school at the University of Bridgeport.

She was a lover of music, dance and theater.

“I’m used to having people die who are older,” her mother said, “not the person whose room is up over the kitchen.”

___

MARY SHERLACH, 56, school psychologist

When the shots rang out, Mary Sherlach threw herself into the danger.

Janet Robinson, the superintendent of Newtown Public Schools, said
Sherlach and the school’s principal ran toward the shooter. They lost
their own lives, rushing toward him.

Even as Sherlach neared retirement, her job at Sandy Hook was one she
loved. Those who knew her called her a wonderful neighbor, a beautiful
person, a dedicated educator.

Her son-in-law, Eric Schwartz, told the South Jersey Times that
Sherlach rooted on the Miami Dolphins, enjoyed visiting the Finger
Lakes, relished helping children overcome their problems. She had
planned to leave work early on Friday, he said, but never had the
chance. In a news conference Saturday, he told reporters the loss was
devastating, but that Sherlach was doing what she loved.

“Mary felt like she was doing God’s work,” he said, “working with the children.”

___

VICTORIA SOTO, 27, teacher

She beams in snapshots. Her enthusiasm and cheer was evident. She was doing, those who knew her say, what she loved.

And now, Victoria Soto is being called a hero.

Though details of the 27-year-old teacher’s death remained fuzzy, her
name has been invoked again and again as a portrait of selflessness and
humanity among unfathomable evil. Those who knew her said they weren’t
surprised by reports she shielded her first-graders from danger.

“She put those children first. That’s all she ever talked about,”
said a friend, Andrea Crowell. “She wanted to do her best for them, to
teach them something new every day.”

Photos of Soto show her always with a wide smile, in pictures of her
at her college graduation and in mundane daily life. She looks so young,
barely an adult herself. Her goal was simply to be a teacher.

“You have a teacher who cared more about her students than herself,”
said Mayor John Harkins of Stratford, the town Soto hailed from and
where more than 300 people gathered for a memorial service Saturday
night. “That speaks volumes to her character, and her commitment and
dedication.”

1 day ago – EXCLUSIVE UPDATED 12:30 p.m. ET: The gunman in the Newtown massacre had an “altercation” with four staff members at Sandy Hook

What Happens When We Die?

By Steve Wohlberg

Are
you ready for the truth about death? We have seen that the Bible
forbids all attempts to communicate with the dead (see Deuteronomy
18:11). There are two reasons: 1) Demons can easily impersonate those
who have died, thereby tricking the living into communicating with them;
and 2) It is impossible for the dead to talk with the living anyway. I
hope to prove this below.

Honestly,
I have wrestled over the contents of this article. After prayer and
thought, I have decided to present my views, based on the Bible, even
though some may disagree. I urge you to read each Scripture presented,
and then come to your own conclusions. David prayed, “Open my eyes”
(Psalms 119:18). May this be our prayer.

Based
on years of research, I have concluded that there are essentially two
different views about the nature of man that affect one’s beliefs about
what happens after death.

The Immortal Soul view

The Non-Immortal Soul view

The
Immortal Soul view is believed by most of the world’s religions. The
idea is that every human body houses an immortal soul that continues
after death. When we die, only our body disintegrates back to dust, but
the soul goes on, much like a snake shedding its skin. Of course
different religions disagree with each other about where souls go after death,
but the basic idea of the soul surviving physical decease is shared by
most in our society. And like it or not, the Immortal Soul doctrine is
the basis of the belief that we can talk to the dead. The reason is
simple: the dead supposedly aren’t really dead.

The
Non-Immortal Soul view is different and contends that – biblically
speaking – the word “soul” applies to the entire person. When God first
created Adam in Paradise, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life, and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). Thus man doesn’t have a separate soul, but rather he is a
soul (see also Joshua 10:35, 37, 39; Lev. 23:30; Acts 27:37, KJV).
After man sinned, his entire person, or soul, became mortal, or subject
to death. When a sinner dies, he or she returns to the dust, and “the
breath of life” returns to God. This “breath” is not a conscious entity,
but is the spark of life that exists in everything alive. At death, the
sinner is truly dead – unconscious, asleep, waiting for the
resurrection. This view is sometimes called “soul sleep.”

Which
view is right? What does the Bible really say? For the moment I am
going to build a case for the non-immortality of the soul. Later on in
this article on the truth about death I will examine the passages about
being “absent from the body” (2 Corinthians 5:8), the thief on the cross
(Luke 23:43), the appearance of Moses and Elijah (Matthew 17:3), the
rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), Paul’s desire to depart and be
with Christ (Philippians 1:23) and the martyred souls under the altar
(Rev. 6:9-11). These verses are often quoted to support the Immortal
Soul teaching. Do they really? We hope to find out. After this, we will
closely examine another big topic – the doctrine of Hell.

First,
let’s see what the Bible says about “immortality.” As we discovered
earlier in this article on the truth about death, after Adam and Eve
sinned they were barred from the tree of life, lest they should “eat,
and live forever” (Genesis 3:22 -24). The message here is that sinners do not naturally “live forever.” Paul wrote that we “seek for glory and honor and immortality” (Romans 2:7) and that Christians will “put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53, 54) on Resurrection Day. Presently, God “only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach” (1 Timothy 6:16). To me, these verses are clear. Fallen man is not immortal.

Next, what does the Bible say happens at death? Notice carefully: “The living know that they shall die, but the dead know nothing…there
is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, where
you are going” (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10). “For in death there is no
remembrance of You, in the grave who shall give You thanks?” (Psalms
6:5). “The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into
silence” (Psalms 115:17). “His breath goes forth, he returns to his
earth, in that very day his thoughts perish” (Psalms 146:4). These Bible
verses say that after death a person knows nothing, has no thoughts,
doesn’t remember God, and lies silent in the grave. This is God’s Word,
not man’s opinion.

Next,
death is sleep. David spoke of “the sleep of death” (Psalms 13:3). All
throughout the Old Testament, when kings died, they “slept with their
fathers” (1 Kings 2:10). The same is true in the New Testament. When
Lazarus died, Jesus Christ said, “Our friend Lazarus is sleeping… Jesus
spoke of his death” (John 11:11 -13). After Stephen was martyred, “he
fell asleep” (Acts 7:60). Dead Christians “sleep in Jesus” (1
Thessalonians 4:14). Daniel wrote that at the end of time, “many who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some
to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt”
(Daniel 12:2). Thus the dead are sleeping in the dust of the earth.
Someday, they will wake up.

Finally,
the Christians’ hope is the return of Jesus Christ and the
resurrection. When our Lord returns, “the dead in Christ shall rise…so
shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17). Look
closely. Paul said Christians will “be with the Lord” when He returns. Jesus taught the same thing when He promised His disciples, “I will come again, and receive you to Myself” (John 14:3). Again, look closely. Jesus did not say, “I’ll meet you in Heaven when you die,” but that He would receive us when He returns.

Ultimately,
Bible truth about death is comforting. Our beloved dead are sleeping
quietly, awaiting the resurrection when Jesus returns. Truth also
protects us from being deceived by heartless, tricky demons who can
easily impersonate the dead. I encourage my readers to continue studying
this topic prayerfully. I’ll conclude with the words of Jesus Christ
Himself:

Do
not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the
graves will hear His voice and come forth–those who have done good, to
the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the
resurrection of condemnation (John 5:28, 29, NKJV).

Grave Errors about Death

In the first two topics we covered here on the truth about death we discovered that:

The Bible forbids all attempts to communicate with dead people (see Deuteronomy 18:11)

Demonic
spirits are deceptively at work around the world (see Revelation
16:14) that can easily impersonate those who have died.

Twenty-six
years ago I learned this Bible truth: Jesus Christ died for my sins,
was buried in Joseph’s tomb, and rose from the grave (see 1 Corinthians
15:3, 4). To Christians, these facts should be non-negotiable. As I have
continued studying my Bible, I have also come to believe that when
human beings die, they are dead, asleep in their graves, waiting for
“the resurrection at the last day” (John 11:24). Death, burial and resurrection,this is what God’s Book says.

I
realize that many other God-fearing Christians don’t quite view
everything as I do. Most believe that when we die, only our bodies
disintegrate to dust, whereas our souls instantly enter the presence of
Jesus. Personally, I don’t believe this. If we disagree, can we do it
respectfully? I hope so. Later on this article on the truth about death,
I will closely examine some well-known Bible texts normally used to
support the “we go to Heaven immediately at death” doctrine. Much is at
stake here. Please consider my arguments, and then come to your own
conclusions.

Absent from the body, present with the Lord? (2 Corinthians 5:8)

This
is probably the main Scripture used to support the common view. The
exact text reads, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be
absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” Paul is clearly
talking about a transition from this sinful “body” to being “present
with the Lord.” There is no question about this. But notice carefully
that in this verse Paul doesn’t specifically say when this
transition occurs. Most assume he meant at death. Did he? Could he have
meant on Resurrection Day when Jesus Christ returns? Amazingly, we
don’t have to guess, for the following verses make Paul’s meaning plain.

Four verses earlier Paul said this transition occurs when “mortality” is “swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:4). When is that? If we back up a few chapters to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, the answer is obvious. Notice carefully:

Behold,
I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be
changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for
the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible,
and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption,
and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality,
then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is
swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is
thy victory? (1 Corinthians 15:51-55)

Here
Paul is writing about the climactic return of Jesus Christ and the
resurrection of God’s saints. Paul called death “sleep” (verse 51). He
also said we are currently “mortal” (verse 53). Finally, he clarified
that when “the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised… then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory” (verses
52-54). Add 2 + 2. In 2 Corinthians 5:4 and 5:8, Paul said the
transition from this sinful “body” to being “present with the Lord”
occurs when “mortality is swallowed up by life.” In 1 Corinthians
15:51-55, he clarified that this “mortal” will “put on immortality” and
that death will be “swallowed up in victory” at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Beyond
this, did Paul clarify anywhere else at what point believers will be
“present with the Lord”? Yes indeed. Once again, notice carefully:

For
the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice
of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ
shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up
together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17).

These verses parallel 1 Corinthians 15:51-55, which explain 2 Corinthians 5:4-8. According to 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17, when will
believers get to be “present with the Lord”? Answer: When Jesus Christ
comes crashing into our polluted atmosphere with a shout, a voice, and
the ear splitting trumpet of God! That trumpet will be so loud it will
pierce the slumbering ears of those who have died trusting the Crucified
and Resurrected One. They will burst out of their clammy graves. How
awesome! Then those of us who are still living (I hope to be among this
group) will be “caught up” into the greatest space ride humans have ever
experienced. And then? Don’t miss it: “so shall we ever be with the Lord.” This is the Word of God. Alleluia!

There lies Uncle Manuel. He’s dead. My
seven-year-old brain tried to comprehend what was happening as I
attended my uncle Manuel’s funeral, beheld his casket, stared into his
pale face, held my dad’s hand while surrounded by mourners dressed in
black, and witnessed my mother’s tears. It was all very strange. At such
a young age, I could hardly understand what death meant, much less what
happens next to those whose short life on this earth has ended.

Uncle
Manuel’s funeral was almost 40 years ago. Since then, I’ve done a lot
of research into what the Bible says in regards the truth about death,
burial, and the resurrection. After years of study, I’ve come to the
conclusion that when a person dies – whether saint or sinner – they are dead,
that is, they lie unconscious in their graves awaiting the
“resurrection of the dead” (Acts 24:15). I realize this is a bit
different from what most people believe. Nevertheless, I am not
accountable to man, but to God alone. To my readers I make this plea:
Read my arguments, study the Bible for yourself, pray, and come to your
own conclusions. Sound fair enough?

Solomon
said that “there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the
grave where you are going” (Ecclesiastes 9:10) and that “the dead know
nothing” (Ecclesiastes 9:5). Both the Old and New Testaments plainly
teach that the dead “sleep in the dust of the earth” (Daniel 12:2) as
they await the resurrection (see Psalms 13:3; John 5:28, 29; 11:11-14;
Acts 7:60; 1 Corinthians 15:6, 51-55). Jesus Christ said concerning the
man who dies believing in Him, “I will raise him up at the last day”
(John 6:44). I have found this to be the consistent teaching of
Scripture.

Yet
as I mentioned earlier, there are a few Bible passages that seem to
support a different view – that of immediate entrance into heaven, or of
instant descent into hell-fire. Earlier we looked at 2 Corinthians 5:8
where Paul wrote about being “absent from the body and present with the
Lord.” It’s time to look at another well-known passage.

The thief on the cross (Luke 23:42,43)

On
history’s darkest day, as the Son of God hung suspended between heaven
and earth bearing the sins of the world, a dying criminal crucified
beside Jesus breathed hopefully, “Lord, remember me when you come into
your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). The King responded, “Assuredly, I say to
you, today you will be with Me in Paradise ” (verse 43). Many interpret
Christ’s response as conclusive evidence that the dying thief’s soul was
instantly ushered into the presence of Jesus on that very day. I
disagree. Here’s why:

First, the dying thief pleaded, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Thus the thief hoped to be remembered at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ,
not before. Second, Jesus Himself did not go to Paradise that day, but
into Joseph’s tomb. Three days later, after rising from the dead, Jesus
candidly told Mary, “I have not yet ascended to My Father” (John 20:17).
Thus our Lord did not ascend to glory on the day of His death. Thirdly,
Jesus clarified that His followers will be with Him when He returns. “I
will come again”, He promised, “and receive you to Myself”
(John 14:3, italics added). Paul taught the same thing when he wrote
that true believers will get to “be with the Lord” when He descends from
heaven and resurrects the dead (see 1 Thessalonians 4:16,17).So what did Jesus mean when He spoke to the dying thief?

Believe
it or not, the confusion stems from one tiny piece of punctuation
called a ‘comma.’ Before we look again at Christ’s exact words to the
thief, let me clarify that the Bible calls itself “the Word of God”, not
“the Comma of God”. The fact is that punctuation and commas were added
to the inspired text many years after the New Testament was written. It
is the same with the numbering of verses. Whatever translation you are
reading from, your Bible says “43” before Christ’s response the dying
thief. “42” comes before that, then “41”, etcetera. Guess what? Luke
didn’t write “41” or “42” or “43” or “44.” He just wrote one book of
Luke. It wasn’t until many years later that mennumbered the verses
to make it easier for us to find them. I’m glad they did. It helps. But
they also added commas where they assumed they should go. So let’s
remove the comma and look at what Jesus Christ literally said to the
thief. His exact words were:

Assuredly I say to you today you will be with Me in Paradise (Luke 23:43).

Now, if you place the comma before
the word “today,” which is where most Bibles place it, then Jesus told
the thief, “today you will be with Me in Paradise.” But if you place the
comma after the word “today,” Christ’s meaning is switched entirely. Then Jesus would have said, “I say to you today, you will be with Me in Paradise.”
In other words, Christ would be telling the thief, “I tell you today”
(right then two thousand years ago) that he would be with Him in the
future when He returns.

So
which is it? Where should the comma go? Fortunately, we don’t have to
guess. Other verses make Christ’s answer clear. First, Jesus didn’t go
to Paradise that day. Second, on Sunday morning He had not yet ascended
to His Father (see John 20:17). Thirdly, and most importantly, Jesus
never contradicted Himself. He plainly promised His followers, “I will
come again and receive you to Myself” (John 14:3). Martin Luther once
said, “Here I stand. So help me God. Amen.” This is where I stand. My
hope is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

My
uncle Manuel was Jewish. As far as I know, he was not a believer in the
Crucified and Risen One. Where did Uncle Manuel go? And if he is lost
(I hope this is not the case!), what will finally happen to him? As we
continue reading this article on the truth about death, we’ll find out.

Elvis
Presley. Marilyn Monroe. Princess Diana. Ronald Reagan. Pope John Paul
II – what do they have in common? They’re all famous, and they’re all dead. No
matter how large a person’s bank account, or how attractive their
physical appearance, or even how close to God they may become in this
life, “All things come alike to all: One event happens to the righteous
and to the wicked; to the good, the clean, and the unclean…after that they go to the dead”
(Ecclesiastes 9:2, 3, italics added). “ But in this world nothing can
be said to be certain, except death and taxes,” penned Benjamin
Franklin. He was correct.

So
far I have built my case that when a human being dies – whether saint
or sinner – they are truly dead, that is, they lie unconscious in their
graves awaiting the resurrection. To briefly summarize, Solomon said
“the dead know nothing” (Ecclesiastes 9:5) and that “there is no work,
or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going”
(Ecclesiastes 9:10). David wrote about “the sleep of death” (Psalms
13:3), Daniel said the dead “sleep in the dust of the earth” (Daniel
12:2), and Jesus Christ emphatically declared that someday “all who are
in their graves will hear His voice and come forth–those who have done
good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the
resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:28, 29). These passages describe
man’s condition at death, his sleeping in the grave, and finally – a
bodily resurrection back to life.

To
repeat what I have written previously, I realize that majority opinion
thinks differently. Shortly after Pope John Paul II died at the ripe age
of 84, Vatican officials declared that their departed leader was now
“looking down from heaven” after being “welcomed into the presence of
Jesus.” With all due respect, I don’t think so. If you are Catholic,
please don’t take offense. I would say the same thing about my own
mother whom I love dearly. Based on my study of the Bible, I believe
Pope John Paul II and countless others are not in heaven at this exact
moment. Rather, they are silently sleeping in their graves waiting for
Resurrection Day.

Earlier
in this article on the truth about death, I examined two biblical
passages often quoted to support the common view of ‘instant heaven at
death’: 1) Paul’s expression about longing to be “absent from the body”
and “present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8) and 2) Jesus Christ’s
promise to a dying thief about being with Him in Paradise (Luke 23:42,
43). I think these arguments are pretty convincing. It’s time to examine
a few more verses that I believe are often misinterpreted to teach
‘instant heaven’ rather than the doctrine of literal death, unconscious
sleep, and future bodily resurrection.

Paul’s “desire to depart and be with Christ” (Philippians 1:23)

Paul
knew that sometime after he died he would be with Jesus, yet it as an
assumption to think that in Philippians 1:23 he meant at the moment of his death. In another letter, Paul clarified that he expected to “always be with the Lord” when Jesus Christ returned to resurrect the dead
(read 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17). It is significant to note that the
very last letter Paul penned was 2 Timothy. In that letter’s concluding
chapter, notice carefully Paul’s ‘famous last words’:

For
I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my
departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the
race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown
of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing (2 Timothy 4:6-8, italics added).

Here
again Paul clarified – just like he did in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17 –
that he looked forward to being with Jesus Christ on “the Day” of “His
appearing”.

Souls under the altar (Revelation 6:9-11)

In
the book of Revelation, John beheld under a heavenly “altar” “the
souls” of many Christian martyrs calling out for vengeance against their
persecutors. “There!” some claim, “There are souls alive in heaven
after they died!” But look closer. This entire passage is filled with
symbolism. In the same chapter John also saw four horses with riders,
the fourth rider being “Death” itself, followed by “Hell” (Revelation
6:1-8). Can “Death” literally ride a horse? Are literal souls crammed
underneath a physical altar? Not a very pleasant place to hang out, do
you think? Biblically speaking, the idea of martyred souls crying out
for vengeance is rooted in Genesis 4 when God told Cain after he
murdered Abel, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood
cries out to me from the ground!” (Genesis 4:10) Does this mean that
Abel’s blood literally muttered syllables through dirt? Obviously not.
Again, this is symbolic.

The appearance of Moses and Elijah (Luke 9:28 -32)

Not
long before Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world, “Moses
and Elijah” appeared to comfort the Saviour. This supposedly proves that
Moses, Elijah, and all the saints
are now alive ‘on the other side’. But it doesn’t. First of all, it was
not disembodied ‘souls’ that appeared before Christ and His disciples,
but “two men” (Luke 9:30) in physical form. Second, Elijah himself never
died, but was translated in Old Testament times without seeing death
(see 2 Kings 2:11). Thirdly, Moses did die, but Jude 9 implies that “the
body of Moses” was at some point raised back to life. In Luke 9:28-32,
Elijah appeared representing all those who shall one day be translated at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, while Moses represented all others who shall be resurrected “at the last day” (see John 11:24). Again, the text says “two men,” not two ghosts.
Why did Moses and Elijah appear? To encourage Jesus to go through with
His death, burial, and resurrection, and to assure Him that millions of
other believers – just like them – would someday be translated or raised
from the grave.

The rapture is a Jesuits Luciferian theology used by agents of the Rothschild /Illuminati cabal.

What is the difference between the Rapture and the Second coming?

The Second Coming of Christ is often confused with the Rapture… The word rapture does not appear in the Bible but some people have often used the Greek word harpazo – caught up for the rapture.

Rapture comes from the Latin word RAPIO define as – seize by force, pillage, ravage and rape. When Jesus comes for His people he will not rape them, nor pillage or seize by force.

Jerome mistranslated the GK. word harpazo for rapio when he who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translation the Vulgate. It is unclear weather the mistranslation was a mistake or a deliberate attempt to deceive. Jesuit Priest Dr. Thomas Ice uses Jerome mistranslation to claim that the rapture is Biblical.

( RAPTURE MYTHS – by Thomas Ice – The Term “Rapture” First of all, the word “rapture” is found in the Bible, if you have the Latin Vulgate produced by Jerome in the early 400s.)

Rapture comes from the Latin word RAPIO – seize by force, pillage, ravage and rape. When Jesus comes for His people he will not rape them, nor pillage or seize by force.

Harpazo – caught up and second coming is the same event. Let me repeat…SAME EVENT…

1Thess.4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first, 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (GK. Arpaghsomeqa, harpazO v_ 2Fut Pas Ind 1 Pl SHALL-BE-BEING-SNATCHED)The Bible is clear.. When Jesus returns… He will return the same way as He left. Act 1: 9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

Vs.10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel:

Vs.11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

Jesus was taken or caught up in a cloud… The Greek word for caught up in Acts 1:11 is analambanO, – one being taken up.

When Jesus returns, He will come in a cloud – Rev.1:7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

Christ return will be not be secret, nor quiet, nor will only a select group see Him… The dead or those who fell asleep in Jesus will be resurrected,

And the righteous living will be caught up with the resurrected saints to meet the Lord in the air.

1 Cor.15: 51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

What happens to the wicked when Christ returns?

Rev.6:15 and the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;

16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: 2 Thess. 2:8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

The Bible is clear… the wicked living will see Christ Second Coming, they will try to hide, and be destroy with the brightness of the Second Coming.

What happens to the wicked dead when Christ returns?

Jn.5:28Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

There are two resurrections. One of life and the other is of damnation (death) The is a period of 1000 yrs that separate the first and second resurrection.

Rev.20:5-6 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.

6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years

How long will the righteous be in heaven and what will they be doing?

Rev. 21:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

What happens at the end of the Millennium?

Rev.21:2 And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Rev.20:7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.

2 Peter 3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Rev.21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

Rev.16:15-17 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.

16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.

Armageddon is the place where the Lord will destroy the wicked once and for all. The whole earth will be cleansed with fire, and than it will be made new again.

Rev.21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. 3And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

Jesus will bring the Temple or the Tabernacle with Him at the end of the 1000 years.

In summary, the events that will take place at the Second Coming of Christ are:

The Dead in Christ will be resurrected;

The Righteous Living will is caught up;

The wicked living will be destroy with the brightness of the Second Coming;

Satan will be bound on earth with no one to tempt for 1000 years; (bound by a chain of circumstance – out of business)

The Righteous will live and reign with Christ for a 1000 years in heaven;

At the end of the thousand years,

The wicked will be part of the second resurrection, Satan will convince them to take over the New Jerusalem which they will see as the city come down from heaven;

Fire will destroy Satan, the wicked, and sin. The effects of the fire will be everlasting. Sin and sinners will be forever eradicated from the earth.

The earth will be cleansed and made new;

The Tabernacle of God (Jesus is the Tabernacle) will live with man.

The Righteous will live on the earth with Christ forever.

The Second coming is not the secret rapture, no secret snatch, no second chance, no third earthly Jerusalem temple, no seven year tribulation, no anti-Christ making a new covenant with Israel, no two plans for salvation (one for Jews and the other for non Jews), no eternal torment (the effects of the fire is eternal).

Yes beloved, in the beginning God took chaos and made cosmos… soon He will reverse His creation and take cosmos and make chaos, He will destroy this old sinful world with fire and than He will take chaos and make cosmos…

Rev. 21:4 and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away..vs.5 Behold I make all things new.

This is the New World Order… not as the man envision it but as God see it.

Study to show thyself approve… Ye shall know the truth and the truth will make you free.

REAL-TIME UPDATES FROM

WASHINGTON — Claiming no victory, President Barack Obama formally ended the U.S. combat role in Iraq after seven long years of bloodshed, declaring firmly Tuesday night: “It’s time to turn the page.” Now, he said, the nation’s most urgent priority is fixing its own sickly economy.

From the Oval Office, where George W. Bush first announced the invasion that would come to define his presidency, Obama addressed millions who were divided over the war in his country and around the world. Fiercely opposed to the war from the start, he said the United States “has paid a huge price” to give Iraqis the chance to shape their future – a cost that now includes more than 4,400 troops dead, tens of thousands more wounded and hundreds of billions of dollars spent.

As for Iraq, for all the finality of Obama’s remarks, the war is not over. More Americans are likely to die. The country is plagued by violence and political instability, and Iraqis struggle with constant shortages of electricity and water.

Obama is keeping up to 50,000 troops in Iraq for support and counterterrorism training, and the last forces are not due to leave until the end of 2011 at the latest.

As the commander in chief over a war he opposed, Obama took pains to thank troops for their sacrifice but made clear he saw the day as more the marking of a mistake ended than a mission accomplished.

The American public has largely moved on from the Iraq war. Almost forgotten is the intensity that defined the debate for much of the decade and drove people into streets in protest.

Yet what grew out of the war was something broader, Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive force against perceived threats. Running for office, Obama said the war inflamed anti-American sentiments and undermined U.S. standing in the world in addition to stealing a focus from Afghanistan.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor, accused people who wrongly believe Obama is Muslim of catering to political enemies during a fiery speech Sunday in Arkansas.

In his sermon at New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Wright criticized supporters of the Iraq war and defended former state Court of Appeals Judge Wendell Griffen for speaking out against it. Griffen serves as the church’s pastor.

Wright’s only reference to Obama came when he compared Griffen’s opponents to those who incorrectly think Obama is Muslim. The president, whose full name is Barack Hussein Obama, is Christian.

“Go after the military mindset … and the enemy will come after you with everything,” Wright told the packed church.

The victims in the attacks have been mostly black, and police suspect the attacks may have been racially motivated. The youngest victim was 17; the oldest was 60. They ranged in size from 5-foot-4 inches and 120 pounds to 6-foot-1 and 190 pound

Israeli media reported that Abuelazam, an Israeli citizen and former resident of Ramle, recently visited Israel, but has been living in the U.S. legally.

Abuelazam was stopped while trying to board a Delta Air Lines flight to Tel Aviv, Israel, said Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman at U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“He has ties to Flint and to Leesburg, Va., the site of three similar attacks last week,” Leesburg Police Officer Chris Jones said.

“While this is a key step in the investigation there are still many issues that need to be addressed before we identify this individual as the person responsible for this horrific crime spree,” Jones said.

Police had focused their hunt on Flint — where 16 stabbings took place — until Leesburg police reported three attacks. Authorities in Toledo, Ohio, say a stabbing in that city Saturday appears to be linked to the violent spree.

Atlanta authorities got involved when the suspect was arrested at the airport, said Atlanta Police spokesman Carlos Campos.

Who was Albert Pike?

Albert Pike was the oldest of six children born into the Jewish family of Benjamin and Sarah Chase on December 29, 1809 in Boston Mass. He was an agent of the Illuminati Rothschild family and given a mandate to control the southern U.S for the Rothschild cabal.

In 1871 Albert Pike envisioned three Word Wars to be followed by an unparalleled economic disaster. Pike’s plans have come to fruition, shockingly ‘on target’. Who is Pike and perhaps more importantly who backed Pike?

Pike’s diabolical plans were revealed in letter to Giuseppe Mazzini, the founder of the Italian Mafia and the Masons, the letter was dated August 15, 1871. The Jesuit author Eric Jon Phelps, in his documentary “Vatican Assassins” reveals that Pike was a Jesuit Illuminati plant.

It was founded in Polaski, Tennessee, in 1866 by 6 Confederate officers. One of them, and the first Imperial Wizard of the KKK, was a former Confederate general and Freemason, Nathan Bedford Forrest. … Albert Pike held the office of Chief Justice of the KKK while he was simultaneously Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite of Masonry, in the Southern Jurisdiction… … the KKK was known as the “Invisible Empire of the South”… in 1869 Forrest ordered the Empire to disband because of the extreme violence.

Evangelical leader Franklin Graham, son of famed presidential religious adviser Billy Graham, said Thursday that he believes President Barack Obama is a Christian, but that the president was born a Muslim because of his father’s religious beliefs.

ArthurKoestler documents the Caucasian ancestry of Ashkenazim Jews. …TheThirteenthTribe. The Khazar Empire and its Heritage. ArthurKoestler. Mr. Koestler speculates about the ultimate faith of the Khazars and their impact on the racial composition and social heritage of modern Jewry. He produces a large body of meticulously detailed research in support of a theory that sounds all the more convincing for the restraint with which it is advanced. Yet should this theory be confirmed, the term “anti-Semitism” would become void of meaning, since, as Mr. Koestler writes, it is based “on a misapprehension shared by both the killers and their victims. The story of the Khazar Empire, as it slowly emerges from the past, begins to look like the most cruel hoax which history has ever perpetrated.

The vast majority of Jews in the world is of Eastern European – and thus perhaps mainly of Khazar – origin. If so, this would mean that their ancestors came not from the Jordan but from the Volga, not from Canaan but from the Caucasus, once believed to be the cradle of the Aryan race; and that genetically they are more closely related to the Hun, Uigur and Magyar tribes than to the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Should this turn out to be the case, then the term “anti-Semitism” would become void of meaning, based on a misapprehension shared by both the killers and their victims. Maybe the two world wars and the Holocaust were pretext for the New Khazaria or Israel hoax.The story of the Khazar Empire, as it slowly emerges from the past, begins to look like the most cruel hoax which history has ever perpetrated.(Arthur Koestler,The Thirteenth Tribe, p. 17).

Old Khazaria existed from about 500 A.D. to about1000 A.D.

Old Khazaria adopted the religion of Talmudic Judaismabout 740 A.D.

Khazaria was reborn on May 14, 1948.

The most cruel hoax which history has ever perpetrated.

As long as Apostate Israel (New Khazaria) exist…there will never be any peace in the Middle East. Modern-day Jewry is of Eastern European/Aryan descent and thus they are not Semitic. Let the truth be told everywhere. Why should American Soldiers die to protect a Hoax?

Christian Zionists do not accept the statements of Christ and other early Christian leaders that criticize Old Testament practices. ( an Anti-Christ Doctrine) Instead, they project Old Testament practices and prophesies into today’s world. Consequently, they revere the Jews as God’s chosen people with a divine right to all lands promised the Jews in the Old Testament. If British politicians had not taken up the cause of restoring the Jews to Palestine. Lord Shaftsbury promoted the cause in the nineteenth century, followed by Lord Palmerston, David Lloyd George, and finally Lord Balfour, who provided an official basis for Jewish immigration to their ancestral homeland with the famous Balfour Declaration of 1917. A brand of idealism mixed easily with practical politics in the activities of these statesmen.

“Hitler would not have been happy,” said Professor Ronny Decorte in a Google translation of theKnack‘s web-version of the story. Decorte, a genetics expert from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (a Flemish research university), says that Hitler apparently wasn’t “Aryan” — what the Nazi would have considered “pure.

The story of Adolf Hitler could be the most twisted in all of history. Add one more twist.

Responsible for the slaughter of millions of Jews and a hero only to self-avowed racists, DNA tests apparently show that the Nazi dictator may have had Jewish and African ancestry.

A chromosome called Haplogroup E1b1b1 which showed up in their samples is rare in Western Europe and is most commonly found in the Berbers of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, as well as among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews …

Haplogroup E1b1b1, which accounts for approximately 18 to 20 per cent of Ashkenazi and 8.6 per cent to 30 per cent of Sephardic Y-chromosomes, appears to be one of the major founding lineages of the Jewish population.

Hitler’s preoccupation with ancestry — including his own — has caused speculation for many years.New York Daily News points out that this research could validate a historic myth:

Hitler’s heritage has been called into question before, with some suggesting his grandfather was SalomonMayer von Rothschildfounder of the Jewish international banking dynasty who financially backed Hitler’s Third Reich
But this is the first claim with any scientific data to support it.

Similar reports have been made against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and said the WWII was a pretext for the Zionist to get Palestine and make it an a new Ashkenazi homeland.

An Austrian document was prepared that proved Maria Anna Schicklgruber was living in Vienna at the time she conceived. At that time she was employed as a servant in the home of Baron Rothschild. As soon as the family discovered her pregnancy she was sent back home… where Alois was born.”

Langer’s information came from the high level Gestapo officer, Hansjurgen Koehler, published in 1940, under the title “Inside the Gestapo“. He writes about the investigations into Hitler’s background carried out by the Austrian Chancellor, Dolfuss, in the family files of Hitler.

The Rothschilds and the Illuminati produce many offspring out of wedlock in their secret breeding programs and these children are brought up under other names with other parents.

Like Bill Clinton, who is almost certainly a Rockefeller produced in the same way, these “ordinary kids from ordinary backgrounds” go on to be extraordinarily successful in their chosen field. Hitler, too, would have produced unofficial children to maintain his strand of the bloodline and there will obviously be people of his bloodline alive today.

So which Rothschild was the grandfather of Hitler? My thanks to a website correspondent for the additional, updated, information to this article, a man has researched this story in some detail. Alois, Hitler’s father, was born in 1837 in the period when Salomon Mayer was the only Rothschild who lived at the Vienna mansion. Even his wife did not live there because their marriage was so bad that she stayed in Frankfurt. Their son, Anselm Salomon spent most of his working life in Paris and Frankfurt away from Vienna and his father.

Father Salomon Mayer, living alone at the Vienna mansion where Hitler’s grandmother worked, is the prime, most obvious candidate. And Hermann von Goldschmidt, the son of Salomon Mayer’s senior clerk, wrote a book, published in 1917, which said of Salomon:

“…by the 1840s he had developed a somewhat reckless enthusiasm for young girls..” and

“He had a lecherous passion for very young girls, his adventures with whom had to be hushed up by the police.”

And Hitler’s grandmother, a young girl working under the same roof would not have been the subject of Salomon’s desire?

And this same girl became pregnant while working there? And her grandson becomes the Chancellor of Germany, funded by the Rothschilds, and he started the Second World War which was so vital to the Rothschild-Illuminati agenda? And the Illuminati are obsessed with putting their bloodlines into power on all “sides” in a conflict?

Israel/Palestine · – North America ….Blackwater founder Erik Prince is a former U.S. Navy Seal and a major contributor to Republican Party candidates. …Blackwater’snew name andPrince’s resignation followed the State Department’s …

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder [ 08/05/09 ] “A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life …

“A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life

The founder of Blackwater USA deliberately caused the deaths of innocent civilians in a series of shootings in Iraq, attorneys for Iraqis suing the security contractor told a federal judge Friday.

The attorneys singled out Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL who is the company’s owner, for blame in the deaths of more than 20 Iraqis between 2005 and 2007. Six former Blackwater guards were criminally charged in 14 of the shootings, and family members and victims’ estates sued Prince, Blackwater (now calledXe Services LLC) and a group of related companies.

9 -11 -1982 Remembered

Christian Militia Massacre in Lebonon

“Moyer saw Israeli flares burst above the camps, and went there to discover piles of bodies – brutally shot. He photographed for hours surrounded by the smell of death, while Israeli soldiers joked around. The killers were never brought to justice.”

On 11 September 1982, Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, the architect of the invasion, announced that “terrorists” had remained inside the Palestinian refugee camps around Beirut. On Wednesday 15 September, the day after the assassination of Israeli-allied Phalangist militia leader and Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel, the Israeli army occupied West Beirut, “encircling and sealing” the camps of Sabra and Shatila, which were inhabited by Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. By mid-day on 15 September 1982, the refugee camps were entirely surrounded by Israeli tanks and soldiers, who installed checkpoints at strategic locations and crossroads around the camps in order to monitor the entry or exit of any person. During the late afternoon and evening of that day, the camps were shelled.

Around mid-day on Thursday 16 September 1982, a unit of approximately 150 Israeli-allied Phalangists entered the first camp. For the next 40 hours members of the Phalangist militia raped, killed, and injured a large number of unarmed civilians, mostly children, women and elderly people inside the encircled and sealed camps. The estimate of victims varies between 700 (the official Israeli figure) to 3,500.

Weighing his words carefully on a fiery political issue, President Barack Obama said Saturday that Muslims have the right to build a mosque near New York’s ground zero, but he did not say whether he believes it is a good idea to do so.

Obama commented during a trip to Florida, where he expanded on a Friday night White House speech asserting that Muslims have the same right to freedom of religion as everyone else in America.

he White House quickly followed up on Obama’s latest comments on the matter, with Obama spokesman Bill Burton saying that the president wasn’t backing off in any way from the remarks he made Friday.

“What he said last night, and reaffirmed today, is that if a church, a synagogue or a Hindu temple can be built on a site, you simply cannot deny that right to those who want to build a mosque,” Burton said.

The president’s statements thrust him squarely into a debate that he had skirted for weeks and could put Democrats on the spot three months before midterm elections where they already were nervous about holding control of the House and maybe even the Senate. Until Friday, the White House had asserted that it did not want to get involved in local decision-making.